Heretofore it has been possible to provide soft serve ice-cream, containing solids, in cups, to the retail customers. But such servings of custom-ordered ice-cream have been possible only in the cups in which the mixing is done and many customers much prefer cones.
However, it is not practical to mix ice-cream while it is in a cone as cones are very weak and can break. In addition ice-cream mixed in a cone would not extend up out of the cone as is the way the public expects ice-cream cones to be served.
Transferring ice-cream from a mixing cup to a cone by pouring has not been practical because it is thick and it clings to the mixing cup. Also, it cannot be shaped up into a swirl extending above the cone, and such an attractive cone is expected because it can be done without solid ingredients in a ice-cream machine.
There has been needed some way to have ice-cream freshly mixed and served in cones with the overflowing ice-cream high above the cones, but with solid ingredients.
In the prior art ice-cream dispensing freezers, commonly called ice-cream machines, have been widely used at ice-cream stands. Some of them have a handle which can be pulled down in three different postions for delivering three different flavors, the flavors being mixed while the valve is open. The outlet of such a machine is shaped for delivering an attractive swirl to the ice-cream as the operator holds the cone under the outlet, moving the cone in a circle.
However, even though such machines can deliver a flavor, they cannot pump solid ingredients, so some kind of other process has been needed to add other ingredients to soft-serve ice-cream.
An objective hereof is to provide a way to do much that a freezer dispenser could do, including shaping the ice-cream into a swirl speedily, but, in addition, providing a product containing selected solid ingredients.
Another objective is to make use of a power-mixer machine which speedily mixes the ingredients into a cup. One then places the cup in an ice-cream ejector hereof so that a quick, almost effortless pulling of a plunger can eject the ice-cream down through a shaping outlet to provide a swirl effect whereby a very attractive cone is produced filled with solid ingredients.
Another object is to provide a cup having an open bottom on which a cap is received to close the bottom at a time when the cup is holding ice-cream during the mixing thereinto of ingredients in the mixer of a prior art. The cap is then removed so that, as the plunger hereof presses downwardly into the top of a cup, ice-cream is ejected out the bottom at an outlet which has been uncovered by the removal of the cap.
Another objective is to provide a shelf having an opening therethrough into which a lower part of the cup can extend, the shelf having a recess on its upper side larger than the lower most part of the cup opening for receiving a portion of the cup. The walls of the recess support the cup during ejection of ice-cream therefrom.
Yet another objective is to provide a shelf with a slidable mounting into the frame so that the shelf can be pulled to the front for ease of emplacement of the cup.
The cup can be put in place and removed from the ejector without interference from the piston by doing these things while the shelf is in the outer position.
Good visability of the ice-cream outlet is important. An object hereof is to provide the cup support shelf with a cutaway portion giving this visability for speedy making of attractive cones.
Other objectives are to provide a quick disconnection system for the piston head. With this the piston head can be quickly removed for soaking and cleaning and easily replaced on the piston rod.
Another objective is to provide a cover removably attachable to the piston head which can be replaced after making one type of cone to prevent its flavor from conveying into another flavor being made next. This is important because the number and variety of ingredients and flavors are unlimited.
Another objective is to provide an efficient way to quickly exchange the piston cover, by use of a pull-out cup support shelf which can be pulled out for easier access to both the piston and the cup.
For good speed the ejector hereof has a short hand-pumping stroke, accomplished herein by a wide cup, much wider than the cone. Therefore the diameter of the cup at its inlet is much larger than at the cup outlet.
Flow to the outlet is made substantially better for ease of pumping by having the inner wall of the cup hereof inclining inwardly and downwardly toward the outlet and thereby defining a frustro-conical ice-cream flow guiding inner wall area.
The outer wall of the piston hereof also has an external frustro-conically shaped undersurface by which a self-aligning of the piston is accomplished so that as the piston enters the cup it is guided toward registry with the cup.
The cup hereof has at its lowermost end a spout useful to receive thereon a cap for use when mixing prior to ejection. The piston is provided with a projecting portion projecting ahead of its resilient header and capable of substantially filling the spout to eliminate a problem with waste ice-cream from incomplete ejection.
If a cover is not attached to a piston it could be expected that the cover would stay in the cup after piston withdrawal necessitating a time-consuming fishing of a used cover out of a cup. However, experiments have shown that a cover need not be attached if a preferred piston-with-header piston-modification hereof is used, and yet the cover will be found to automatically and desirably come out of the cup with the piston. The cover need only to simply rest against a resilient header which is piston-attached and which extends across the front of the piston, and yet it has been found that the cover will desirably cling to the resilient header as the header leaves the cup, apparently because of a slight gripping of the cover around the edges of the headers.
Another discovery is that even very inexpensive thin wax paper can be simply lain across the top of the cup and that the wax paper will not shear upon piston entry, likely because of the gentle resiliency of the header edges. Also, it has been found that the thin paper cover will not shear upon reaching the constricted spout area of the cup, if the piston fits the spout area not too tightly.
An objective is to provide a more sanitary way, using a pin, to attach the piston to the piston rod with fewer difficult-to-clean bacteria-harboring crevices.